A Dog’s Best Friend

Local girl raising money for animal shelters and pet rescues

By Tonya LittleContributing Writer

One local little girl is showing the community that anyone can make a difference, no matter what age. Molly Haskett, who just turned 9 in July, has been working long and hard since last winter for something that she feels passionate about, taking care of animals and finding them homes. Together with her grandma Rene Smith Mateo, Haskett has started a group called Molly’s Cause for Paws, earning money to donate to shelters and pet rescue organizations. It all started with Haskett wanting to make a Christmas craft for her parents.

“I wanted to do a craft for Christmas while I was at my mimi’s, for my mom and dad. She was looking on Pinterest and found these little snowmen and she thought it would be a good idea to raise money for something and the idea I came up with was for shelters because we both really like animals,” said Haskett.

Molly Haskett, 9, has been raising money for local animal shelters and pet rescues through her group called “Molly’s Cause for Paws.” She has raised money by selling crafts. (Provided photo)

Mateo and Haskett set up a Molly’s Cause for Paws Facebook group page and began taking orders for the snowmen, which are made from socks and rice. The response was overwhelming and soon they had more orders than they could keep up with. Haskett wrote a letter to local businesses asking for donations for the supplies. Sam’s Club donated the rice and Wal-mart donated the socks.

“I kind of gave her the platform in a sense and provided the opportunity by taking her to different places and having her walk up to Wal-mart and ask for the donations. She’s really very assertive but she has such a kind heart and is so polite with everyone, it’s neat to watch,” said Mateo.

They sold the snowmen for $6 each and made $1200. They worked on them day and night filling the orders and shipped them off all over the United States. The result was that Haskett was able to make 5 donations of $250 to different organizations which included the Midwest City Shelter.

“Molly chose 3 rescues and 2 shelters to surprise them with $250 each and she brought a big check up there to them. It was pretty cool, they couldn’t believe that an 8 year old was doing this,” said Mateo.

The local Chili’s restaurant also recently helped Haskett raise more money as well. They allowed her to have a Molly’s Cause for Paws night, and a percentage of the sales from everyone who came in and mentioned that they were there for it went to Haskett’s group. They were able to raise $450 that evening. Haskett also recently attended a Midwest City Council meeting and stood up to tell the council that the city needed a bigger shelter.

“I went to the council meeting to talk about that we needed a bigger shelter because there are only 24 kennels at the shelter, and only 12 are for adoptable animals,” said Haskett.

Although the project started with snowmen, they have now moved on to other projects. Haskett and Mateo are currently making different soaps to sell this time through the Facebook page. The soaps are all cleverly named by Haskett, like Poodle-Mint and Pug-kin Spice. They are creating their inventory now and hope to begin selling them after Labor Day, having learned the first time that taking orders and having the time to fill them all might be too much. This time they will have a certain amount to sell instead. Haskett has a goal of earning at least $1000 with the soaps.

Molly Haskett and her grandmother created Molly’s Cause for Paws, a group that raises money to help animal shelters. (Provided photo)

Haskett doesn’t let this project take up all of her time though, the homeschooled girl also does cheerleading for Choctaw and is also involved in gymnastics. She stays busy. Haskett also wants to expand her project and invite her friends and family to help more in the production of the things that she sells, so it can lead to even bigger and better things. She says that they just might tackle making bracelets and charms to sell next.

“A love of pets and a love of family is how this got started, because I wanted to do a craft for Christmas for mommy and daddy,” said Haskett. “My big message to everyone is to adopt don’t shop, and to spay and neuter.”

You can get involved and find out more information by going to the Facebook group Molly’s Cause for Paws.